The recently released 10.04 version of Ubuntu is the third Long Term Support (LTS) version Canonical has released. I installed this new version on four of my laptops (2 netbooks, 1 normal laptop, 1 portable desktop replacement), and here's my impression of it.

This is the one, for the most part, that grandma could use unattended. The default theme needs a cohesive colour scheme but it's a minor thing compared to the functionality with this release. Whether it's the year of desktop Linux or not, I wouldn't guess but this is good.

It's so quick that I'm not thinking that I'm waiting for the thing to do something. It reminds me of when operating systems were lighter and could run on a Motorola 68020 or 80286 to the bounds of free RAM.

For me, there is a singular problem and that's my tethered mobile phone internet connection. It's recognised and the setup is simple since my service provider is in the list, but DNS entries were not added by default and so I'm not getting anywhere with it automagically. I'll fix it later since it hasn't been the supporting machine anyway.

That's flawless in contrast to earlier releases from 7.04 onward. Everyone involved should be proud.